Waiting For Google To Like Me -- Is the Google Sandbox Effect Real?

While on the road and listening to the radio a few hours ago, the DJ started to play Foreigner‘s “Waiting For A Girl Like You”. When it got to the chorus, it sounded like the song was speaking to me. Almost instantly, I got inspired to do another play with lyrics. More on that a little later…

You see, just a week ago I started a new website and have been creating and adding new content non-stop during the 6 days that followed. I was working real hard — each day ended late into the night. Finally, I was done, but it seems Googlebot was taking its time to visit my site and indexing its content.

That site now has 70-plus entries in its sitemap file; it started off with like 20. But Google’s robot has been crawling so slowly (almost like one, yes ONE, visit a day) and each time it took away only one or two URLs to add to the index! The past week has been a long and almost cruel wait as I checked each day to see where Google had ranked me in the search results (or SERPs).

If you have read about SEO (search engine optimization) and the quirkiness surrounding this topic, there is a phenomenon called “Google Sandbox” that seems to affect new sites. Somehow, when a new site goes live and the Big G has started indexing, the site would appear high in the SERPs for a brief moment, only to tank shortly after and not figure anymore for quite some days.

This short-lived moment of glory is referred to as the “honeymoon period” in the SEO world, and the overall “here, then gone” observation is called the sandbox effect. You can read the forum entries at Google Webmaster Central site to learn more about such Internet Marketing issues and related developments.

Now, back to our song and lyrics change. Here’s the manifestation of my inspiration:

So long, I’ve been working too hard, I’ve been waiting too long
Sometimes I search but I just can’t find, I only know it’s a matter of time
When the Bots come ’round, bring back what they found

Great stuff I write, so fresh and new, I need to know if you feel it too
Maybe I’m wrong, won’t you tell me if my pinging’s just too strong
Old sites of mine have been hurt before, this time I wanna be sure

I’ve been waiting for Google to like me, to crawl into my site
I’ve been waiting for Google to like me, indexing what I write
I’ve been waiting for Googlebot to help the SERPs revive
Yeah, awaiting Google to like me, to come into my site

Today’s inspiration is strong as you can tell by this longer post. I am quite pleased with the lyrics, frankly. Looks like I can work on the rest of this song too, and it certainly is tempting. Perhaps I’ll revisit this next time.

Meanwhile, enjoy this classic hit of 1981 from the British-American rock band Foreigner, in the recording below. Catch the haunting 8-bar synth intro, which repeats beautifully as the song fades at the end — it’s unmistakably the signature of this song 😉

You can also watch Foreigner live on stage on Youtube.